The archived blog of the Project On Government Oversight (POGO).

Nov 09, 2012

In an attempt to combat corruption in resource-rich developing countries, two years ago Congress ordered U.S. corporations to disclose payments they make to foreign governments for the extraction of oil, gas, and minerals.

As supporters of the law saw it, the lack of transparency had allowed corruption to flourish and an elite few to profit from natural resources that should have benefited entire nations.

But the extractive industries protested that the requirements would damage their business, and they sued to block the rule that the Securities and Exchange Commission wrote to implement Congress’s mandate.

This week, the SEC stood its ground and refused to put the rule on hold while industry groups challenge the agency in court.

Government investigators have uncovered conflicts of interest among the contractors working on a multi-billion dollar effort to decontaminate and decommission two of the nation’s nuclear weapons sites.

Contractors at plants in Piketon, Ohio, and in Oak Ridge, Tenn., were overseeing work by subcontracting companies in which they hold a financial interest, according to a report from the Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General.

According to federal and DOE regulations, this arrangement means the contractors are “unable to render impartial assistance or advice to the government,” and their “objectivity in performing the contract work is or might be otherwise impaired,” the report said.

The investigation found that contractor Restoration Services Inc. (RSI) was overseeing the work of subcontractor VETCO at both nuclear sites, even though RSI holds a financial interest in VETCO.

Nov 05, 2012

A fraud lawsuit alleges none of the security guards provided by Triple Canopy to guard a U.S. airbase in Iraq met the Army's minimum target shooting requirements.

By NEIL GORDON

The Department of Justice announced the filing of a lawsuit against private security firm Triple Canopy for allegedly defrauding the government on an Iraq security contract.

In June 2009, the Joint Contracting Command in Iraq/Afghanistan (JCC-I/A) awarded Triple Canopy a one-year, $9.5 million contract to provide security at Al Asad Airbase, the second largest U.S. airbase in Iraq. According to the government’s complaint, Triple Canopy billed the government for hundreds of Ugandan security guards who did not meet firearms proficiency requirements.

“[Triple Canopy] went further than simply billing the Government for unqualified personnel,” the complaint alleges. “It falsified the documents in its files to show that the unqualified guards each qualified as a ‘Marksman’ on a U.S. Army qualification course.” According to the complaint, the government paid Triple Canopy a total of $10.4 million on the contract between September 2009 and July 2010 in reliance on falsified billing documents.

Nov 02, 2012

Hurricane Sandy has devastated the Northeast, leaving entire neighborhoods under water, millions without power, and the entire New York subway system out of commission. The public is acutely aware of how important it is that the government be prepared to respond with advance warnings and accessible information on planning, preparing, and mitigating the effects of a natural disaster.

But public access to crucial information will not only save lives and prevent damage during a natural disaster, but also in cases of widespread outbreak of food-borne illness, catastrophic oil spills, or a terrorist attack. Last week, the Project On Government Oversight joined the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Center for Science and Democracy and several other organizations in sending a letter offering crisis management recommendations to presidential candidates President Obama and Governor Romney. We hope the incoming Administration will take swift steps to adopt these ten recommendations to ensure the strongest possible crisis response policy.

UCS organized a panel of experts, ranging from public health and crisis information management specialists to openness and transparency advocates, to put together this list of core recommendations. POGO’s Director of Public Policy, Angela Canterbury, was a participant.

“Our new Center for Science and Democracy hopes to encourage experts working in diverse disciplines to come together as colleagues and offer recommendations that cross partisan and ideological lines,” said Celia Wexler, UCS Senior Washington Representative. “Crises challenge our democracy, and it’s crucial that they are addressed in a way that gives the public evidence-based information that will help them cope.”

Cheating on security tests has become almost as common as in high school classrooms

By PETER STOCKTON and LYDIA DENNETT

Cheating on security tests is nothing new for Wackenhut Services Inc.’s Oak Ridge unit (WSI-OR) at the Y-12 National Security Complex. In September POGO reported that, once again, Wackenhut, the security contractor at the Tennessee nuclear weapons facility, was accused of cheating on security performance tests that were administered at the complex after an 82-year-old nun and two accomplices broke in this July.

Now, the Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General (IG) has released a report about the cheating, finding that copies of the test questions and answers “had been distributed in advance of the test to…the very people whose knowledge was to have been evaluated as part of this process.”

According to the IG report, the test was sent by encrypted email to “trusted agents” at Babcock and Wilcox Y-12, the managing and operating contractor at Y-12, for review. One of the officials sent the test to a WSI-OR manager for comment, an apparently common practice as these officials often don’t have the specific knowledge to provide informed feedback. The WSI-OR manager proceeded to send the test materials to two other Protective Force officers, none of whom were deemed trusted agents. The WSI-OR officials “treated the documents as if they were a training aid and widely distributed it to a variety of officers.” This cheating was discovered when a federal inspector found a copy of the test on the seat of a guard vehicle the day before it was to be administered.

The IG report called the failure to safeguard the test “inexplicable and inexcusable.”

Recently, while I waited at a stop light, a motorist pulled up next to me and yelled into my open window, "YOUR CANDIDATE SUCKS!" He was responding to a bumper sticker my daughter had put on our car for the presidential candidate she supports. Did he think he was persuasive? Did he think I’d change my mind because he was yelling at me?

There seems to be a lot of yelling at each other lately.

People on both ends of the political spectrum are loudly making their opinions known on their Facebook pages, in their Twitter feeds, and even stopped in traffic. And they’re doing so without always checking the so-called facts that they’re espousing, or listening to what the other “side” has to say.

They are spurred on by partisans on both sides and by many in the media who demonize the other side in order to attract more followers, more contributions, higher ratings—entities whose goal is not to fix problems or to set facts straight, but to simply further their own interests.

All this anger and unwillingness to listen currently typical of the American public is also now typical in Congress. Gridlock and paralysis are the new norm as the members of Congress stick blindly to their party lines, rather than acting in the best interest of our nation.

Although this jarring political discourse isn’t civil, constructive, or even particularly informed, there is a potential upside to the mayhem we are living through.

It shows that the American people care again.

Not too long ago, the biggest problem with engaging the citizenry was apathy. Our challenge is no longer to try to wake the sleeping giant. Now our challenge is to convert the energy currently expended hurling epithets at the other side into an enthusiasm for fixing the problems being roared about.